Question

How do I reinstall the Spooler Service?

Asked by: robertvt

Somehow the print spooler service has been removed from my file and print server.  Nobody at work can print, and when I went to check the spooler service in services.msc it wasn't listed. Is there a way to get this reinstalled without taking down and rebuilding the entire server? I'm at a loss as to how this could have happened -- no configuration changes have been made in weeks.


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Asked On
2008-09-04 at 16:09:08ID23704645
Tags

Microsoft

,

Server 2003 R2

,

Standard

Topics

Microsoft Operating Systems

,

Windows 2003 Server

Participating Experts
3
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0
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: jdustinbPosted on 2008-09-04 at 16:20:08ID: 22393829

from a cmd window, try running the following:
sfc /scannow

you'll need the os disc handy.

You can also try replacing spoolsv.exe and spoolss.dll under \windows\system32\ with the originals from the disc. It's possible the .dll got corrupted.

From \i386\ on the disc:
expand -r spoolsv.ex_ C:\windows\system32\spoolsv.exe
expand -r spoolss.dl_ C:\windows\system32\spoolss.dll

Hope this helps.

 

by: robertvtPosted on 2008-09-04 at 19:29:59ID: 22394691

nope, i tried that.  The weird part is that c\windows\sys32\spoolsv.exe and spoolss.dll are in their proper directories. But they're not being called to run. There's no mention of the spooler in the registry either. It's as if it's been surgically extracted somehow.  Is there any way to add syntax to the registry to make it "aware" of the services required for printing?

 

by: jjdurrantPosted on 2008-09-04 at 20:10:54ID: 22394939

 

by: robertvtPosted on 2008-09-04 at 20:46:48ID: 22395123

I'd rather not have to reinstall all 45 different printers and drivers from scratch. I really doubt it's a printer driver problem, as they haven't been changed lately and were working fine right up until the spooler service vanished. But I wanted to try anyway so I made a backup of the registry keys and did the following:
open regedit (e.g. click Start, key regedit and press Enter)
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers
under this key, there will be the keys Version-2 and Version-3 (one or the other of these may be absent - not a problem)
    the sub-keys under these contain the printer driver configuration information
delete all the sub-keys inside Version-2 and Version-3, but not these keys themselves
The Microsoft Knowledgebase article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312052 lists some other registry entries to delete, but this is not usually necessary.
open a Command Prompt window
key the commands
       net stop spooler
       net start spooler

BUT the problem arrises that when I go to type net stop/start spooler i get: The specified service does not exist as an installed service.  That's really the crux of it all.  I wish there was a magic program called spoolerserviceinstaller.exe i could run to reinstall the service.  Oh well...I'll keep trying things...thanks for your help so far.

 

by: robertvtPosted on 2008-09-04 at 22:13:38ID: 22395455

I figured it out...

I went into the registry and added the print spooler back in manually by copying the keys from another server.  Then magic happened and suddenly the service was useable again!

 

by: ftmiller3Posted on 2010-12-16 at 12:08:46ID: 34372293

Could you provide the reg keys you replaced please?

 

by: robertvtPosted on 2010-12-16 at 12:28:39ID: 34372449

I'm sorry that I can't. It was quite a while ago and I don't even have that server config anymore. Sorry!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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